65 – When Mills crash lands on an uncharted planet after his ship is hit by an asteroid, he seems to be the only survivor. However, discovering another living passenger, a young girl called Koa, the only way for them to get off the planet is to climb a mountain. Unfortunately between them and their hope for rescue are terrifying creatures and an inhospitable terrain. Can the pair reach safety or will they end up a snack for the animals?

65 (2023) – Director: Scott Beck, Bryan Woods

By Sony Pictures – http://www.impawards.com/2023/sixty_five.html, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=68662576

Rating: 12A

Running Length: 93 mins

Starring: Adam Driver, Ariana Greenblatt, Chloe Coleman

Genres: Action, Science Fiction

REVIEW: 65

’65’ is one of those movies the critics love to hate. Like ‘Cowboys and Aliens’ before it, this sci fi offering simply isn’t pretentious enough and was never going to be well thought of. So, I’m afraid you’ve reached ‘ITMS’ and will have to make do with someone who loved it! Adam Driver is Mills, the man from the planet Somaris tasked with taking numerous cryogenically frozen people somewhere across the stars on a flight supposedly lasting two years; a job he reluctantly took in the hopes of helping his daughter’s illness with it’s large pay rise.

Who are the cryogenically frozen people? Who knows! How many are there? Erm, quite a few? Where are they going? Don’t know! Do we care that they are killed when the ship crash lands? Not at all! So, with all that out the way, we are left with Mills and, shortly after, Koa, one of the cryogenically frozen few; a young girl and only other survivor who speaks a language the Mills doesn’t understand.

So begins their long hike across rough terrain which is infested with giant, blood-thirsty creatures who are queueing up to have a go at eating our two characters. As you may have seen from the trailers, these creatures turn out to be dinosaurs – Mills and Koa have crash landed on Earth and the movie’s title refers to how many millions of years ago they are there. It is incredibly disappointing that this was shown straight away with no build up; it would have been so much more fun for the audience to have figured this out for themselves.

The pair work beautifully together, Koa (Greenblatt) obviously reminding Mills (Driver) of his own similarly-aged daughter and Driver portrays his stoic exterior with a warmth that develops naturally as the movie progresses. Mills isn’t a superhuman (yes, I know he’s technically an alien) who can take endless punishment but, knowing there is limited time for them to be rescued forces him to keep pushing on despite sometimes debilitating injuries (the dislocated shoulder with approaching dinos was particularly exciting!) Equally, Greenblatt is vulnerable, tough and believable, and is definitely one to watch. ’65’ is almost non-stop with its action but each sequence feels fresh, and plenty of time is given to the characters to fully understand them. Ok, ’65’ may not be high art but it is entertaining and exciting and sometimes that’s all we need.

CONTENT: IS ’65’ SUITABLE FOR CHILDREN?

A ship travels through space and is hit with meteorites. These rocks get bigger and start to do serious damage. The sequence of the ship crash landing is very exciting – there are explosions and loud bangs throughout and could be quite frightening for younger kids.

Mills has been injured in the crash. There is a close up of a metal shard sticking out of his torso and a large amount of blood around it. The camera focuses on it as he pulls it out – he winces and groans in pain. After this, he sprays something on it to clean the wound and groans loudly again in pain.

When attempting to check on the passengers, before Mills can enter the room they are in, a huge amount of blood splashes and pools under the door.

Mills walks around in a pool of water outside the wreckage. A creature swims behind him, its back occasionally breaching the surface, unseen by Mills.

Believing himself to be the only survivor, Mills considers suicide. However, this is short lived and he never goes back to this. It is also done quite subtly and kids may not understand what is happening.

There are several times when animal shrieks and growls are heard at night. This scares the characters and could be scary for kids.

There are numerous jump scares throughout the movie, most of which come about when a dinosaur suddenly attacks. We won’t detail them here so as to avoid spoilers, however if your child is sensitive to jump scares, they are likely to struggle with this film.

Mills falls out of a tree and dislocates his shoulder. He attempts to put it back into place. He bashes it against the tree several times, causing him to groan in pain each time. Koa notices several dinosaurs slowly approaching them and becomes extremely afraid. When these dinosaurs attack, the pair are able to defend themselves but Koa is dragged away while Mills is distracted with the others.

When his technology notifies him of danger, Mills tries to wake Koa up. However, he discovers that a large bug has entered her mouth, stopping her from breathing. He manages to get rid of it and she immediately takes a large breath – she is fine after this.

In a cave, the pair hear strange noises coming from a hole, further inside. They slowly walk backwards to the entrance of the cave, however, when lightning strikes, a bigger danger is revealed that they are currently unaware of. This leads to a very exciting scene which is likely to be too scary for younger viewers.

Trapped inside the cave, Mills realises their only hope of getting out is to crawl through a very tight space between the rocks. This is very tense with Mills in particular seeming unlikely to get to the other side. When there is a cave in, it appears that Koa has been killed and Mills is devastated. When out of the tunnel (but still in the cave), Mills is set upon by another dinosaur which is able to use the darkened areas to hide and then leap out.

A character lands in quicksand and becomes fully submerged, they are under for around 10 seconds before something happens to them.

The finale of the movie is very exciting but is very similar in tone to previous scenes so we won’t detail this further apart from saying that this scene is longer and therefore at times, more intense.

CAN I SEE A CLIP?